Get Ready to Tender to Public Sector
Tendering for the supply of products, or services is very difficult and highly competitive. This is sometimes the only route to work within the public sector, so how to you get your foot into the door and know what Public Sector Clients want.
Knowing what public sector clients want from a supplier is sometimes difficult to establish and can be different from other clients in the private sector. Even understanding the jargon and tender process can be daunting.
The following four tips will provide you with a simple guide to help you sell more effectively to the public sector buyer and the key points that they are looking for in a supplier.
Tip 1 - You must show that you have an understanding of the public sector key business needs or issues, what are their key objectives and strategy; your business must align yourselves to match their values. Find out what they are, each local authority or organisation will have a set of core values.
Tip 2 - Public sector clients do not choose on price alone. You must establish superior value. This superior value is via technical, managerial, quality or service differentiators backed up with tangible evidence. Where is your proof that you have provided value for money and your existing clients have not chosen you on price alone? Do you ask why your clients use your services? Public sector tenders focus at the quality and price weighting detailed in the specification. If you do not show best value, you are forcing your clients to choose on price alone.
Tip 3 - You must show that you are a safe choice as public sector clients like risk free suppliers and the more you can assure the Public Sector that your company can mitigate identified risks upfront, the more likely you are to be selected. This is demonstrated in the unpublished ‘20% rule' whereby public sector clients benchmark supplier financial capacity to deliver the project against the annual contract value you are trying to win, versus your annual company turnover. The more you go above 20% rule the less likely you are to be awarded the contract, unless you can prove that you have successfully delivered similar size contracts and have built in capacity to deliver their project.
Tip 4 - You must demonstrate that you are a good partner, working in partnership with your clients, having expert knowledge, have previously shown creative and innovative ideas with your existing clients - you must back this up with factual evidence. Possessing externally audited quality processes rather than saying you have good internal policies scores more points with public sector clients.
HM Treasury estimates that public procurement market, excluding public corporations, is worth around £150 billion per annum. This is broken down Local Authorities (England/Wales) spend approximately £40 billion (Bought-in goods and Services - £27 billion and Capital Expenditure - £13 billion); NHS spends £17 billion (National Contracts £5bn and Regional NHS spend approx £12bn); MoD spends £16 billion; Education spends £10 billion, Civil Government spends £13 billion and Scotland spends £8 billion.
It may be a good business decision for you to research further into what ‘Public Sector Clients Want' and gaining more access to public sector tenders.
To get tender ready you must take five simple steps to win you new business via tendering:
- Audit and refine your company policies and tender processes
- Create robust tender procedures and tender document library
- Produce pre-qualification & tender proposals ready to re-use
- Proactively get on news feeds to source tenders that suit your business and market
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Train to win more tenders via team workshops or seminars
If you would like assistance becoming ready for tendering, Striding Out can connect you to Tender Management Consultancy Limited and we may beable to access funding to help cover the training costs.
Just email your requirements to [email protected]
